2015 Esso Cup

STARS CAPTURE BRONZE BEHIND THREE-POINT GAME FROM ELIA

WENDY GRAVES

RED DEER, Alta. – Having already played 394 minutes of hockey, it took only 20 seconds for the Saskatoon Stars to determine their Esso Cup fate.

Leading 2-1 midway through the second but being outplayed to that point in the period by the Central Plains Capitals, Julia Rongve (Saskatoon, Sask.) and Kianna Dietz (Hanley, Sask.) scored back-to-back goals to suddenly put the Stars up 4-1 and let them coast to an eventual 5-1 win in the bronze medal game.

Saskatoon had registered its first shot of the period only 17 seconds before Rongve’s goal, and was outshot 28-14 for the game.

Nara Elia (Saskatoon, Sask.) led the way with a goal and two assists. Rongve, Dietz and Sophie Shirley (Saskatoon, Sask.) each had a goal and an assist. Shirley finished with nine goals in seven games at the 2015 Esso Cup, one marker shy of the record. Mackenna Parker (Clavet, Sask.) also scored for the Stars.

Karlee Fetch (Prince Albert, Sask.) made 27 saves for Saskatoon.

Sheridan Oswald (MacGregor, Man.) scored for Central Plains.

Lauren Taraschuk (Winnipeg, Man.) made nine saves in a losing cause.

It was a question of how would each team respond to its semifinal setback. Central Plains had lost 3-0 to the Sudbury but never seriously threatened the Lady Wolves; Saskatoon was back on the ice less than 24 hours after losing a shootout to the Red Deer Chiefs. Both teams seemed sluggish out of the gate, perhaps a by-product of the previous day’s emotional letdown, but also of playing its seventh game in seven days.

Parker opened the scoring for Saskatoon 12 minutes into the first. Her first goal – and point – of the Esso Cup was a beauty, a backhand from the slot that kissed the post before going in. Shirley doubled her team’s lead two minutes later, when she took a pass from Elia off the face-off and tucked it into the net.

Central Plains got on the board early in the second on its first power play opportunity. Oswald scored her team-leading fifth goal with a slap shot from the top of the face-off circle that came out as fast as it went in.

The Capitals continued to control play, but that energy diminished at 12:33 – Rongve scoring from a few feet out – and evaporated at 12:53 (Dietz stealing the puck inside the blue, then shooting it in a few feet farther up).

The Stars put the game on ice in the third, when Shirley sent a pass from behind the goal line out front to Elia.
The Stars’ bronze medal is the fourth medal won by a team from Saskatchewan at the Esso Cup.